India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru, lived up to its name this week, with at least one important strategic development or investment announced almost every day.
Let’s start with the latest. On Friday, India’s second largest IT services firm, Infosys, announced rather muted first quarter financial results. Its April-June net profit fell 2.1% from the previous three months, hit by a one-off charge related to fair value reduction of Israeli software company Panaya. Infosys posted a net profit of Rs 3,612 crore in the June quarter compared to Rs 3,690 crore in the preceding quarter. However, during the same period last year, the company posted a profit of Rs 3,483 crore, up 3.7% year-on-year. Revenue during the quarter stood at Rs 19,128 crore, up 6% year-on-year and 2.3% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency terms.
Infosys’ results come a few days after India's largest software services company Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) upbeat earnings performance. Its first quarter profit was up 23.5% from the previous year, boosting expectations from the sector.
Earlier on Friday, in what can be seen as a setback for TPG-backed Manipal Hospital Enterprises, Malaysia’s IHH Healthcare Bhd won the race for India’s second-largest hospital chain Fortis Healthcare bringing to an end a months-long bidding war for control of the cash-strapped firm. IHH beat its rival bidders with its offer to invest Rs 4,000 crore at a price of Rs 170 a share. The TPG-Manipal combine in its final bid had proposed to infuse Rs 2,100 crore through a preferential allotment at Rs 160 a share. Had the bid gone in favour of Manipal Hospital Enterprises, it would have created India's largest hospital chain by revenue, toppling Apollo Hospitals, the largest chain today.
Besides the Infosys results and the Fortis transaction, small investments across an array of sectors also dotted startups across the city. On Wednesday, Magic Crate, an early childhood learning brand, raised an undisclosed amount in its third round of institutional funding led by Fireside Ventures. The company had earlier raised funding led by Mohandas Pai-backed Aarin Capital and 3One4 Capital. The latter also participated in the current round.
On Monday, investment platform Groww raised $1.6 million in a pre-series A round of funding from Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightbridge Partners and Kairos, among others. Its previous investors Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, co-founders of health solutions startup CureFit, also participated in the round.
In an interesting strategic transaction, Tata Motors acquired a stake in a domestic startup for the first time. It picked up a 26% stake in freight aggregator TruckEasy for an undisclosed amount, it said on Tuesday. According to Tata Motors, the transaction will help it with “insights into the rapidly growing technology-driven freight logistics business”.
On Thursday, Spanugo, a Chennai and Silicon Valley-based security compliance firm raised an undisclosed amount from Ideaspring Capital, an early-stage investor. The Fabric, a California-based startup accelerator and a group of unnamed angel investors, also participated in the round.
In another startup investment in Chennai, business-to-business e-procurement platform Kobster raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-Series A round from Japanese seed investment firm Incubate Fund and others, including Chandigarh Angel Network, ANME (Angel Network Middle East), and LetsVenture.
Watch this space to know more next week.
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